Sorry for the early morning post, haven't seen a Blues game live in a while & I'm pumped.

BLUES (12-9-2) at SHARKS (11-7-4)

TV: NHLN-US, FS-MW, CSN-CA

Last 10: St. Louis 5-4-1; San Jose 4-4-2

Season series: This will be the second meeting of a three-game series between the Blues and Sharks. In their first matchup, San Jose prevailed 2-1 on Feb. 19 thanks to Tim Kennedy's third-period tally.

Big story: The Blues are 1-2 so far on their five-game road trip that started in Dallas and ends in Anaheim on Sunday. Meanwhile, the Sharks just returned from a two-game trip through Western Canada in which they suffered two losses.

Team Scope:

Blues: The Blues erupted in the second period of Thursday's game against the Coyotes, scoring three goals in a 4:47 span for a 6-3 victory. The line combination of David Perron, Patrik Berglund and Chris Stewart combined for a total of nine points.

"The Berglund line was outstanding. They really have a good thing going and hopefully that continues," Hitchcock said. "We were an opportunistic team tonight. We still have a ways to go, but it was good to see us get rewarded."

The Blues' success against the Coyotes came on the tail-end of a frustrating loss to the Kings on Tuesday night in which they allowed four unanswered goals in the third period to fall 6-4.

Sharks: The Sharks are 2-6-1 in their last nine games and have scored more than two goals in regulation just once in their last 17 games. Additionally, the Sharks will need to improve on the power play to turn the tide, considering they 3-for-42 in their last 10 games and were unable to capitalize on four power-play chances against Calgary on Wednesday.

"We're disappointed," coach Todd McLellan said. "We had an opportunity to win a game going into the third period and we didn't play very well.”

Who's hot: Berglund notched a pair of goals in his last outing and has 14 points in 23 games this season.

Injury report: The Blues are without Alexander Steen, who is on injured reserve with an upper body injury. Andy McDonald (knee) and Vladimir Tarasenko (head) are also out … The Sharks are without right wing Martin Havlat (lower body) and defenseman Brent Burns (undisclosed) who are both listed as day-to-day

14 goals in the last 3 games. If that's what they have to do then so be it. We may have seen the end of All-Defense Ken Hitchcock teams.

Also, I'd like to amend something I said once before... Pie and Shatty aren't the only two guys they need to lock up long term. Boat too. Even without the hatty, he plays with more heart than the rest of the team combined. Not only should be be locked up, he should be awarded the C.

glen a richter wrote:14 goals in the last 3 games. If that's what they have to do then so be it. We may have seen the end of All-Defense Ken Hitchcock teams.

Also, I'd like to amend something I said once before... Pie and Shatty aren't the only two guys they need to lock up long term. Boat too. Even without the hatty, he plays with more heart than the rest of the team combined. Not only should be be locked up, he should be awarded the C.

I'd hand him an A.If you had Sobi's motor and heart with Stewart's physical ability you'd have an unstoppable force. The rest of the team should be kissing his boots right about now. Good win, especially after I was fuming about Mizzou pissing the bed again.

Couldn't be happier for Sobotka. He's been on fire lately, good for him hope it keeps going. That snipe he had (I think it was his second goal) was SICK. That was an Evgeni Malkin-type shot right there, man oh man.

More importantly, though, this was a huge win that good teams need to have. If the Blues are going to contenders and not pretenders you need to have games like this: finding a way to win. Sobotka didn't do it by himself, there was great play from this team and not just rolling over in the 3rd period down by 2. Good teams win these types of games and glad to see the Blues doing it instead of it happening to us as it normally does.

The best part of the last two games is that after the Blues gave up multiple unanswered goals, they dug down and fought back. Sobotka is a beast and it's great to see him rewarded with the hat trick today. I keep saying this, and it may just be me feeling good vibes after wins, but the team seems to play differently in front of Allen. That or he just seems so confident in net that he's making the D look better. There are still too many scrums in front of the net that result in scoring chances, but other than the Gomez goal, Allen didn't let those bite him.

2 more points against a team that's battling a playoff spot. Sure, they got 1, but we can't worry about that. Ducks tomorrow, will be a tough game, but we've got back to back wins under our belt so hopefully that eases the pressure and they can just go out and play their game.

dmiles2186 wrote:I keep saying this, and it may just be me feeling good vibes after wins, but the team seems to play differently in front of Allen. That or he just seems so confident in net that he's making the D look better.

I agree, but the thought isn't shared by some others on the site . It's like they're pulling for "the kid" and play together as a whole. Idk, what I've seen when Allen is in net has been fun to watch, hope it keeps going & we start to get and stay healthy.

It's great to see this team fighting to adversity and battling back, however if your D makes that many mistakes you're going to loose more often then not.

As a whole we were the better team, but that D is still having too many mental lapses. It's not even like I can single out a guy or two. Jacks got walked around on one play, Pie looked lost on another, Russel with another ill advised pass and whiffed on a chance to clear.

We've got to clean that up boys.

I can almost live with the odd man rushes when the D get's caught pinching, but the mistakes in your own end are inexcusable and often lead to a 'L'.

We were the better team and it still took a goalie off his game to get us a point because of our issues in our own end (not just defensmen either, one goal was the result of no effort by Dags when he could have easily cleared the puck).

Glad to see Sobotka getting rewarded for his constant effort. If I didn't detest our current jerseys I would've bought his jersey seasons ago. Give him an A, he definitely deserves it.

That said, we really didn't have many quality chances and got lucky that their goalie wasn't quite at his best last night. I agree with ditka on his point about mental lapses in our own end, that has to stop and you almost never saw that last year. I'll still take the 2 points though.

The real test is tonight against the Ducks, If we walk away from that with 2 points I will be more than pleased.

Kreegz2 wrote:Glad to see Sobotka getting rewarded for his constant effort. If I didn't detest our current jerseys I would've bought his jersey seasons ago. Give him an A, he definitely deserves it.

That said, we really didn't have many quality chances and got lucky that their goalie wasn't quite at his best last night. I agree with ditka on his point about mental lapses in our own end, that has to stop and you almost never saw that last year. I'll still take the 2 points though.

The real test is tonight against the Ducks, If we walk away from that with 2 points I will be more than pleased.

Kreegz2 wrote:Glad to see Sobotka getting rewarded for his constant effort. If I didn't detest our current jerseys I would've bought his jersey seasons ago. Give him an A, he definitely deserves it.

That said, we really didn't have many quality chances and got lucky that their goalie wasn't quite at his best last night. I agree with ditka on his point about mental lapses in our own end, that has to stop and you almost never saw that last year. I'll still take the 2 points though.

The real test is tonight against the Ducks, If we walk away from that with 2 points I will be more than pleased.

Would you prefer the Keenan era sweaters? That's a clown jersey, bro!

I actually own 3 of them: Twist, Hull, and Conroy. My dislike for the current sweaters stems from the ridiculous yellow piping, the "horns" and the lack of a waist stripe. In my opinion, we just need to go back to the '98-'07 sweaters and the league needs to reverse it's terrible decision to wear the colored jerseys at home.

At least the Blues organization has always been smart enough not to (Frank) with the Bluenote much. Any major change to it would throw me into a rage. I actually like the current bluenote the most out of all that they have had.

Kreegz2 wrote:Glad to see Sobotka getting rewarded for his constant effort. If I didn't detest our current jerseys I would've bought his jersey seasons ago. Give him an A, he definitely deserves it.

That said, we really didn't have many quality chances and got lucky that their goalie wasn't quite at his best last night. I agree with ditka on his point about mental lapses in our own end, that has to stop and you almost never saw that last year. I'll still take the 2 points though.

The real test is tonight against the Ducks, If we walk away from that with 2 points I will be more than pleased.

Would you prefer the Keenan era sweaters? That's a clown jersey, bro!

I actually own 3 of them: Twist, Hull, and Conroy. My dislike for the current sweaters stems from the ridiculous yellow piping, the "horns" and the lack of a waist stripe. In my opinion, we just need to go back to the '98-'07 sweaters and the league needs to reverse it's terrible decision to wear the colored jerseys at home.

Couldn't agree more on the jerseys. I don't mean to hijack this and make it a jersey thread (maybe we should start one of those), but I really think we need to drop the piping and bring back a horizontal waste stripe. There are several teams who started off with the piping after the RBK Edge jerseys were introduced, but after a year or two, reverted to the waste stripe that most teams have. I hope we see a change back to those sometime soon.

I don't know if I'd go back to the '98-'07 jerseys. I do love those, but it would be nice to change it up just a bit.